It's filled with energetic cartoons... that will appeal to your little rebel, depicting teachers as dungeon-keepers, matadors and flying dragons.

All profitable kids’ books are written for 'little rebels.' They all depict the authority figures as dumb, ugly and mean. They all make money. They all lack a soul.

Hard to find books for boys who just want to be boys, not necessarily a "rebel" at age 8. My son is quite mischievous but, sadly, doesn’t hate school or his teachers or his parents, and seems to accept that he hasn’t figured everything out yet. It’s hard to find books for a boy like that. I often give in and let him read snark, with the typical “at least he’s reading” excuse. Not too proud of that.

"(I clicked on the Althouse link, so I presume this link goes through the Althouse portal)"

If you don't see "althouse" in the link, then going in from that link, from here won't be credited to me.

But if you entered through a link that includes "althouse," such as the ones in the original post or the link that's always up in the banner of the blog, then when you move on to other pages, even if they don't have "althouse," it will be credited (as long as you complete the purchase before leaving).

And, again, Amazon is giving me about 8% of the purchase price, so it's a very effective way to show appreciation for this blog (without spending any extra money).

All profitable kids’ books are written for 'little rebels.' They all depict the authority figures as dumb, ugly and mean. They all make money. They all lack a soul.

That's not so. The four I mentioned in my own comment don't do that. The Harry Potter books don't. (Ok, Snape, and later on Fudge and Umbridge and the like, but there's never a sense that authority as such is "dumb, ugly, and mean."). The Narnia books don't. The Hobbit doesn't. Madeleine L'Engle's books don't. Susan Coopers "The Dark is Rising" books don't.

You see the common element here? Everything in the above paragraph is a work of fantasy. You can make your own villains when writing fantasy. But if you're writing real-world fiction for kids, what have you got to work with, villain-wise? Other kids, bullies? (Can be done, but hard to make a book-length plot from.) Rival gangs? (Sigh. Been there, read that, too often in grade school.) International spies and kidnappers? (Again, can be done, but only so many times.)

So what's left? Nasty principals and nasty teachers and nasty school nurses is what.

So what's left? Nasty principals and nasty teachers and nasty school nurses is what.

Michelle Dulak Thomson, you are obviously correct. Not all profitable children's book follow the same template, and I did overlooked the fantasy genre because it never appealed to me as a boy and I am not familiar with it.

I don't think the authority-figures-as-villains is merely the result of lack of options. The review noted that it will "appeal to your little rebel" for a reason. I think it speaks more to the pop-intellectual view of children, whose greatest danger is conforming to authority.

Somehow, I managed to read books as a boy that weren't fantasy and didn't mock the lunch room lady. But a lot of them involved a trusty dog. There is probably a fertile zone between full-blown fantasy and real-world fiction.

I remember my freshman year of high school I had "Catch 22" confiscated by my home room teacher four times. It was supposed to be "too adult" for young people. I dumpster dived all kinds of reading material from the dumpster behind the Balantine Books warehouse so I had a pretty good supply of books.I eventually taped the cover from my brothers copy of "Amateur Rocket Builders Handbook" and she left me alone.

Freeman, I was assuming kid books, as in elementary school. I think in middle school I was reading John Grisham and Michael Crichton, among other things, and in high school I went through mostly classics (1984, yes, although I was more interested in Jane Austen, etc...I really liked Dostoyevsky too)

"I clicked on the link in your post, then used Amazon's search to find The Great Brain series, found it, cut and pasted for the link. Wonder why it didn't work."

It's designed not to work like that.

Here's how you could get a good link. Go to the search box in the side bar and search for it. Then you'll get a URL that has "althouse" in it. But if you do another search after you're there, it won't produce a URL with "althouse" in it. Nevertheless, if you were to buy an item and complete the purchase before leaving, it would be credited to me.

So, in a discussion thread like this, probably the easiest thing to do is name the thing you'd like to tell people to search for, and then they could go in through my link and search. That would work.

The other way is to use the search box in the sidebar and get an althouse URL.

I loved the All-of-a-Kind Family too. And Roller Skates, and Eleanor Estes books and of course, Edward Eager and Mama's Bank Account. My grandmother had all of Louisa May Alcott's books including Jo's Boys, Rose in Bloom, with all those families with their relatives and friends. Of course, all of Anne of Green Gables and Betsy Tacy. I was mostly a historical fiction reader from 3rd or 4th through 6th grade. It's rare to find a person who liked historical fiction as a child. Mostly its fantasy or school stories.